29 Facts About Maurice Sendak

Maurice Bernard Sendak was an American author and illustrator of children's books.

Maurice Sendak became most widely known for his book Where the Wild Things Are, first published in 1963.

Maurice Sendak was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Polish Jewish immigrants Sadie and Philip Maurice Sendak, a dressmaker.

Maurice Sendak described his childhood as a "terrible situation" due to the death of members of his extended family during the Holocaust which introduced him at a young age to the concept of mortality.

Maurice Sendak's illustrations were first published in 1947 in a textbook titled Atomics for the Millions by Maxwell Leigh Eidinoff.

Maurice Sendak spent much of the 1950s illustrating children's books written by others before beginning to write his own stories.

Maurice Sendak didn't care that it was an original Maurice Sendak drawing or anything.

Maurice Sendak's sister is kidnapped by goblins and Ida must go off on a magical adventure to rescue her.

Maurice Sendak was an early member of the National Board of Advisors of the Children's Television Workshop during the development stages of the Sesame Street television series.

Maurice Sendak adapted his book Bumble Ardy into an animated sequence for the series, with Jim Henson as the voice of Bumble Ardy.

Maurice Sendak produced an animated television production based on his work titled Really Rosie, featuring the voice of Carole King, which was broadcast in 1975 and is available on video.

Maurice Sendak contributed the opening segment to Simple Gifts, a Christmas collection of six animated shorts shown on PBS in 1977 and later released on VHS in 1993.

Maurice Sendak adapted his book Where the Wild Things Are for the stage in 1979.

In 1993, Maurice Sendak published a picture book, We Are All in the Dumps with Jack and Guy.

Later in the 1990s, Maurice Sendak approached playwright Tony Kushner to write a new English-language version of the Czech composer Hans Krasa's children's Holocaust opera Brundibar.

Kushner wrote the text for Maurice Sendak's illustrated book of the same name, published in 2003.

In 2004, Maurice Sendak worked with the Shirim Klezmer Orchestra in Boston on their project Pincus and the Pig: A Klezmer Tale.

Maurice Sendak created the Canadian-produced children's animated television series Seven Little Monsters.

Maurice Sendak mentioned in a September 2008 article in The New York Times that he was gay and had lived with his partner, psychoanalyst Eugene David Glynn, for 50 years before Glynn's death in May 2007.

Maurice Sendak drew inspiration and influences from a vast number of painters, musicians, and authors.

Maurice Sendak and Mickey Mouse were born in the same year and Maurice Sendak described Mickey as a source of joy and pleasure while growing up.

Maurice Sendak died on May 8,2012, at age 83, in Danbury, Connecticut, at Danbury Hospital, from stroke complications, a month before his 84th birthday.

The 2012 season of Pacific Northwest Ballet's The Nutcracker, for which Maurice Sendak designed the set and costumes, was dedicated to his memory.

The Rosenbach filed an action in 2014 in state probate court in Connecticut, contending that the estate had kept many rare books that Maurice Sendak had pledged to the library in his will.

In 2018, the Maurice Sendak Foundation chose the University of Connecticut to house and steward the Collection.

Internationally, Maurice Sendak received the third biennial Hans Christian Andersen Award for Illustration in 1970, recognizing his "lasting contribution to children's literature".

Maurice Sendak received one of two inaugural Astrid Lindgren Memorial Awards in 2003, recognizing his career contribution to "children's and young adult literature in the broadest sense".

Maurice Sendak has two elementary schools named in his honor, one in North Hollywood, California, and PS 118 in Brooklyn, New York.

Maurice Sendak received an honorary doctorate from Princeton University in 1984.